Book III - "Official" comments

[BasiliskWrangler]

After reading everyone's great posts here, as well as receiving numerous emails packed with suggestions, comments and criticisms, I felt it was a good time to step in and let everyone know what the plans are as of right now. Plans change, so if you are reading this a year from the posting date, I can't guarantee it will all still be accurate.

First off, please note that we have not yet announced Book III, and this is not an official announcement of the game. Yes, we are working on it behind closed doors but until we have something substantial...including a rough release date estimate, we will not announce the game officially. And, until the game is officially announced, it might as well not even exist. It could just turn into vaporware one night if we decide to begin work on a different game. This is the joyous freedom of being an indie developer.

Okay, let's start by looking at Book I. After almost 3 years of development we released a game that was probably 70% of my original plan. It was lacking some key features, but for the sake of the company and my sanity, we released the game and it sold well.

Book II was an evolution of the Book I game engine, and it took 2.5 years for us to finish it. It featured many (not all) of the missing features left out of Book I, as well as a plethora of features suggested by you, the fans. Book II has been a success for us as well, and in fact it is ahead of Book I in terms of sales during the same amount of time. But, certainly Book II is not a "perfect" game and we hope to address this with the closing of the trilogy.

And so, here we are facing the beast that is Book III. I will start by saying that I plan on spending more time on content than engine upgrades this time around. Not that I don't plan on really pushing this engine as far as it can go for this final game, but I felt that with Book II we spent too much time upgrading the engine (then fixing bugs from those upgrades) and not enough time on making content. I want to reverse that for Book III and focus more on content and story, and less on new engine features.

So with this, I want to encourage everyone to continue to throw us your suggestions, but know that not everything will be implemented. Specifically, major technological updates are not going to be part of the Book III engine. We want to focus on re-balancing the ruleset, fixing broken or useless skills and attributes, and putting all the best design elements of Book I and Book II into this final game. The future of the Eschalon universe, as well as Basilisk Games, rests on the shoulders of Book III. It will likely be our most expensive production yet, and so positive reception is critical.

None of this may be particularly exciting news to any of you, but as we enter the holidays and the new year I will be going to deep development mode, and that means less official communication from Basilisk HQ. Just because you might not hear anything for a few months doesn't mean we aren't working- in fact silence is usually when we are working our hardest.

[Antigrav]

Good! I think that knowing not to expect a major overhaul will allow us all to relax and enjoy what we have.

Dibs on any Portuguese translation work for Book III!

[SpottedShroom]

I will start by saying that I plan on spending more time on content than engine upgrades this time around.

Excellent news! The engine works quite well already, so I hope you'll either be able to write more content than the previous games or finish it faster. Either way, I'll be very happy.

[Kreador Freeaxe]

I'm very happy to hear that you won't be making any of the suggested radical interface changes. I think that for the most part, Book II's interface is terrific, though I like some of the tabbed inventory refinements that some have suggested, I could live without them easily in order to get your richest world yet and to learn the final secrets of Eschalon.

[MyGameCompany]

This is just want I wanted to hear, as well. I agree the Book II engine seems very stable and feature-rich, and just needs some balancing and gameplay-related tweaks.

Maybe by foregoing serious engine changes you'll be able to finish Book III a little quicker too.

[Aldbeski]

good luck BW a i hope Book 3 is everything u an us want

[Evnissyen]

Awesome... . The lack of activity in Book 2 is really the thing that bugs me, though I complain about a lot of things . . . so I want to see lots of stuff in Book 3! If there're a lot of things to do and a lot of things happening and lots of characters doing charactery things... and most of all if there's a good, driving story... then I won't complain about the interface or the animation any longer, nor about the women looking like men.

...But only if I'm really happy with it.

Anyhow, here're a few things:

Cartography:
- If you map out an area with a cartography bonus, then your maps should not be degraded when you lose that bonus and go over the same area.
- You should not have to go into every single little cranny of a tunnel or forest in order to complete your maps. This is one of the most tedious things about Eschalon. Simply moving past should be enough. Even if this isn't entirely realistic, at least it makes the game more enjoyable.
- Give the player a white crayon! At cart=9, he/she will spend time coloring in doors and lootbags, but will not change crayons when the grass starts growing snow.

Quick-Travel:
Add a modifiable QT point that you can stick wherever, as you can with the Portal spell. For example, in Book 3 I would've stuck my personalized QT point at my house near Eastwillow.

(Actually, I wonder if it wouldn't be cooler to personalize all the QT points? If you can do this with the Portal spell then you can do the same for the QT.)

Hunger and Thirst:
These bars should move more quickly.

Barrels & Chests:
Should be roomier . . . maybe less realistic, but also less bothersome for those of us who're packrats.

[KarlXII]

Thank you for your update.

I totally agree with prioritizing content instead of engine-upgrades. More dialogue choices and hopefully choices that affects things in one way or another. More descriptions of areas and more puzzles and hidden things.

Mage should not be so overpowered from mid to end game (reduce mana regeneration ?).

It should not be possible to flee from monsters from one area to the next and then use hit-and-run tacticts to take them down. At least let them heal up if that is not possible or let them follow from one area to the next.

Until then I am to finish Eschalon Book 1....

[xolotl]

(reduce mana regeneration ?)

Part of me cries a little whenever anyone suggests this. :) I for one would love keeping mana regeneration where it is.

[SpottedShroom]

(reduce mana regeneration ?)

Part of me cries a little whenever anyone suggests this. :) I for one would love keeping mana regeneration where it is.

Agreed. Playing a mage is much easier in Book II than Book I, but MP regen does not make them overpowered. Consider some of the really tough late-game fights against monsters with tons of HP. A maxed-out bow or melee fighter will make mincemeat of just about anything - their max damage is just a function of how much they want to invest in combat skill. A maxed-out mage deals damage much more slowly because their damage is static by spell, and will *still* run out of MP. If there were a PvP version of Eschalon, mages would get torn up. Well, except for Invisibility and Portal :)

What makes mages "better" than other characters is the fact that their variety of spells means they never have to spend skill points on things other people do - pick locks, skullduggery, cartography, etc.

[Painted Lady]

I'm all for BW's announced approach to Book III. The Book II engine is great as is, so I'm happy that he is going to focus on the story line in Book III. Of course, I actually didn't see anything wrong with the Book I engine, so I must be more story oriented than some....

You know, one person can't do everything. Look at SpiderWeb Games for example. Jeff's stories are terrific, but the graphics are so antiquated it is dreadful. I personally think BW has done a wonderful job of balancing his efforts and has produced two great games as a result.

[IJBall]

There are some good suggestions in here.

Anyhow, here're a few things:

Cartography:
- If you map out an area with a cartography bonus, then your maps should not be degraded when you lose that bonus and go over the same area.
- You should not have to go into every single little cranny of a tunnel or forest in order to complete your maps. This is one of the most tedious things about Eschalon. Simply moving past should be enough. Even if this isn't entirely realistic, at least it makes the game more enjoyable.
- Give the player a white crayon! At cart=9, he/she will spend time coloring in doors and lootbags, but will not change crayons when the grass starts growing snow.

To your first point - the question is, can this be done without a major overhaul of the engine? I've always gotten the impression that the "undrawing" effect is a 'quirk' of the game-engine, and "fixing it" would require a lot of work. (FWIW, the "undrawing" effect seems less pronounced to me in Book II than it was in Book I - for instance, I've noticed that roads and such don't get "undrawn" in Book II when my Reveal Map spell wears off...)

I absolutely agree with your #2 - just make it so that when your Cartography skill is high enough, the entire minimap draws in as soon as you enter a new map-screen. Sure, that may be kind of "magical", but... so what?!

And your #3 was a Book II pet peeve of mine - assuming there's snowy landscapes in Book III (and, FTR, I'm actually not assuming that!), then I would hope that such snowy landscapes would get colored in with white, instead of 'green' like they were in Book II!

Quick-Travel:
Add a modifiable QT point that you can stick wherever, as you can with the Portal spell. For example, in Book [2] I would've stuck my personalized QT point at my house near Eastwillow.

(Actually, I wonder if it wouldn't be cooler to personalize all the QT points? If you can do this with the Portal spell then you can do the same for the QT.)

This is also an excellent suggestion - give the player at least one player-customizable QT-point.

Because, you're right - in Book II, I also would have made my cabin my customizable QT-point.

But letting us choose one (or more) customizable QT-points for ourselves in an excellent suggestion!

Hunger and Thirst:
These bars should move more quickly.

I wouldn't be in favor of this, unless it was tied into a new chooseable "Game Difficulty" option.

Barrels & Chests:
Should be roomier . . . maybe less realistic, but also less bothersome for those of us who're packrats.

Sure - one option would be expand chests, etc. to 10-slots instead of 8.

My preferred preference for dealing with this, though, is for the player to have the ability to "make & drop" a new loot-sack on command (i.e. without even needing the Forage skill, for example). Then you could keep the current 8-slots per chest/sack, but would have the ability to make any loot-sacks you want any time you needed to!

[SpottedShroom]

There are some good suggestions in here. :)

- If you map out an area with a cartography bonus, then your maps should not be degraded when you lose that bonus and go over the same area.

To your first point - the question is, can this be done without a major overhaul of the engine? I've always gotten the impression that the "undrawing" effect is a 'quirk' of the game-engine, and "fixing it" would require a lot of work. (FWIW, the "undrawing" effect seems less pronounced to me in Book II than it was in Book I - for instance, I've noticed that roads and such don't get "undrawn" in Book II when my Reveal Map spell wears off...)

Given that BW has stated that fixing this bug would be a lot of work, I'm in favor of simply removing spells/items that increase cartography.

[IJBall]

- If you map out an area with a cartography bonus, then your maps should not be degraded when you lose that bonus and go over the same area.

To your first point - the question is, can this be done without a major overhaul of the engine? I've always gotten the impression that the "undrawing" effect is a 'quirk' of the game-engine, and "fixing it" would require a lot of work. (FWIW, the "undrawing" effect seems less pronounced to me in Book II than it was in Book I - for instance, I've noticed that roads and such don't get "undrawn" in Book II when my Reveal Map spell wears off...)

Given that BW has stated that fixing this bug would be a lot of work, I'm in favor of simply removing spells/items that increase cartography.

I know CrazyBernie has expressed similar sentiments, but I really can't sign off on this.

The Reveal Map spell is a real cool way that magic-using characters can get around the need for the Cartography skill (allowing them to spend those precious Skill points elsewhere!) - I would definitely not be in favor of doing away with it. (Which is not to say that I don't want to see it revised! - I personally want to see its duration increased to a flat 100 or 160 turns per casting rather than leaving its duration 'casting-level dependent'...)

As for the "undrawing the map" thing... maybe if it was said, up front, in the Reveal Map spell description that this "undrawing" thing was a "side-effect" of using the spell maybe there'd be fewer complaints about it. Well, one can always hope!

[Kreador Freeaxe]

As for the "undrawing the map" thing... maybe if it was said, up front, in the Reveal Map spell description that this "undrawing" thing was a "side-effect" of using the spell maybe there'd be fewer complaints about it. Well, one can always hope!

Wait, people actually read those descriptions?